8
SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION
organism could be extracted and recombined with those of another (using recombinant DNA, or rONA, technology) without either organism having to be of the same species. Second, removing the requirement for species reproductive compatibility, new genetic combinations could be produced in a highly accelerated way. The fateful Pandora's Box had indeed been opened. The fictional horrors of the "Andromeda Strain:' the unleashing of a biological catastrophe, was no longer the stuff of science fiction. The danger was real, and no one seemed to be overtly concerned. Genetic engineering introduced a foreign organism into a plant in a process that was imprecise and unpredictable. The engineered products were no more "substantially equivalent" to the original than a tiny car hiding a Ferrari engine would be to a Fiat. Ironically, while companies such as Monsanto argued for "substantial equivalence:' they also claimed patent rights for their genetically modified plants on the argument that their genetic engineering had created substantially new plants whose uniqueness had to be protected by exclusive patent protection. They saw no problem in having their cake and eating it too . . With the Bush Administration 1992 ruling, that was to be upheld by every successive Administration, the US Government treated GMO or bio-engineered foods as "natural food additives:' therefore not subjecting them to any special testing. If it wasn't necessary to test normal corn to see if it was healthy to eat, so went the argument, why should anyone have to bother to test the "substantially equivalent" GMcorn, soybean, or GM milk hormones produced by Monsanto and the other agribusiness companies? In most cases, the Government regulatory agencies simply took the data provided to them by the GMO companies themselves in order to judge that a new product was fine. The US Government agencies never ruled against the gene giants. "Nature's Most Perfect Food ... " T~e first mass-marketed GMO food was milk containing a recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, known as rBGH. This was a genetic manipulation patented by Monsanto. The FDA declared
